September 9, 2002
EMPIRE - Get a group of veterans together and you can usually count on a few war stories. The stories the vets of the old Empire Air Force Station are telling at their reunion this week have a twist: They manned one of the nation`s key radar posts, assigned to detect Soviet bombers and nuclear missiles, during the height of the Cold War. The station started out low key, with a few enlisted men setting things up in 1950. But things soon got into full swing with the installation of the world`s most sophisticated radar technology and teletype links to one of the nation`s first large computers. With three huge "radomes" housing large sweeping radar antenna, the men at Empire were constantly on the alert for unidentified airborne intruders heading toward the U.S. border from the north.
When they detected a suspect aircraft, their information was used to dispatch jets out of bases throughout Michigan to intercept and identify it. It was a high-security post and was often tested for lapses by Air Force Intelligence agents. At its peak in the early 1950s there were 300 enlisted men and officers stationed at Empire, said Walt Ashmead of Rochester, N.Y., a radar operator at Empire from 1951 to 1954. He is one of about 150 Air Force vets plus nearly as many spouses attending reunion events this week, starting with a tour of the old base Sunday and ending with a final banquet at the Holiday Inn West Bay in Traverse City Wednesday.
It`s the second reunion for the vets who served in the 752nd Aircraft Control & Warning Squadron (Jan. of 1951 to July of 1960), the 752nd Radar Squadron (July of 1960 to April of 1978), Detachment 1 of the 23rd Air Defense Squadron (April of 1978 to March, of 1979) and Operating Location AB, 20th Air Defense Squadron (from March of 1979 until the base closed in 1983).
The first reunion was in 2000.
Dan DuChateau of Ypsilanti, a radar operator, was among the last to serve at Empire, leaving six months before it was shut down and the radar systems were turned over to the Federal Aviation Administration.
"It was great here, the best assignment," he said. "We had boats, snowmobiles and even got season tickets for skiing at Sugar Loaf. We worked three 12-hour shifts and then got three days off so you had time to do things."
And do things they did. Traverse City was just becoming a major tourist destination and there were plenty of bars, restaurants and places to meet the local girls.
In fact the Air Force boys sometimes got a little rowdy, said Loyd Duncan, a radar operator at Empire in 1955 and 1956. At one point, Traverse City was declared off-limits to station personnel because commanders were tired of dealing with flyboys landing in the local slammer, he said.
Duncan married Ramona, a Traverse City girl, in 1955 and now lives in Bloomington, Minn. Empire vets said someone once calculated that Air Force guys from Empire married some 300 local women over the years the station operated.
Many coming to Empire were shocked by the cold and snow and talked about the misery of slogging up the hill to the radar domes or having to ride to Traverse City in the backs of trucks with canvas canopies in the winter. Even so, they said, it was good duty. Duane D`Arcy, who lives in Traverse City now, was stationed at Empire from 1953 to 1957. Watching a video of the demolition of some barracks buildings in 1985, he muttered, "I`m glad I wasn`t here to see that. It would have been a little rough."